PHOTO: Navajo and Apache children imprisoned at Bosque Redondo, those who survived the Long Walk and capture.

Louise Benally censored
by Indian Country Today

The following
comments by Louise Benally of Big Mountain, comparing the Long Walk and imprisonment in Bosque Redondo to the war in Iraq,
were censored by Indian Country Today.

Pressed to publish
a correction to the published article by this reporter, the newspaper refused.

Navajos at Big Mountain
resisting forced relocation view the 19thCentury prison camp of Bosque Redondo and the war in Iraq as acontinuum of
U.S. government sponsored terror.

Louise Benally of Big Mountain remembered her
great-grandfather andother Navajos driven from their beloved homeland by the U.S. Army onfoot for hundreds of miles
while witnessing the murder, rape andstarvation of their family and friends.

“I think these poor children had gone
through so much, but, yet theyhad the will to go on and live their lives. If it weren’t for that, wewouldn’t
be here today.

“It makes me feel very sad and I apply
this to the situation in Iraq.I wonder how the Native Americans in the combat zone feel about killinginnocent lives.”

Looking at the faces of the Navajo and Apache
children in the BosqueRedondo photo, Benally said, “I think the children in the picture lookconcerned and maybe
confused. It makes me think of what the children inIraq must be going through right now.

“The U.S. military first murders your
people and destroys your way oflife while stealing your culture, then forces you to learn their evilways of lying
and cheating,” Benally said.